January 16, 2024 – President Rick Bailey clicks off SOU’s goals for 2024 in this month’s video message. External objectives include building on “partnerships, collaborations and coalitions” built over the past two years, and moving SOU’s entrepreneurial initiatives – solar projects, senior housing and university business district – from the idea to the “actionable” phase. Internal goals focus on celebrating “loving, passionate, caring things” SOU does to serve its students, consolidating enrollment gains by retaining more returning students and ensuring that all “not just feel welcome here, but feel they belong here.”

November 20, 2023 – President Rick Bailey celebrates SOU’s groundbreaking fall enrollment gains in this month’s video message. Increases of 15% in the freshman class and 10% for transfers, along with solid retention gains for all undergraduates, “set SOU apart” from Oregon’s other public universities. He credits data-sharing agreements with Oregon high schools, visits to K-12 districts, data analytics and hard work by admissions staff. The president also discusses SOU’s novel general education core and the “connection” of community members with the university.

October 4, 2023 – SOU President Rick Bailey says in this month’s video message that the new academic year is full of possibility. Enrollment figures suggest we’ll have the largest first year student class in at least six or seven years, and that enthusiasm for higher ed is good for the region and state. Also, the positive results from fiscal adjustments made over the past year have changed assumptions. SOU has gone from a “culture of scarcity” where possibilities are limited, to a “culture of opportunity” in which the best way to predict the future is to invent it.

March 29, 2023 – SOU President Rick Bailey circles back to something he mentioned over a year ago in his first video message to campus and community members: that with kindness and unity as a foundation, the university can do anything. He acknowledges that there is turbulence and anxiety, but also opportunity as SOU proceeds with its fiscal realignment. And he thanks campus and the community for their support through all of their connections with SOU.